


Anima

by PassiveGood



Category: The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: Dream Sex, Masturbation, Other, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sexual Frustration, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 04:39:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14762750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PassiveGood/pseuds/PassiveGood
Summary: Elisa doesn’t always remember her dreams. There are times she wakes up in a blind panic, heartbeat racing, but the details shrink and scatter like shadows in the lamplight until all she’s left with is the foggy memory of a nightmare and the lingering echo of a familiar growl. Whatever haunts her dreams, she remembers only a terrible sensation of sinking. And she thinks ofhim.





	Anima

**Author's Note:**

> * Anima **(noun)**  
>  _The inner personality that is turned toward the unconscious of the individual._
> 
> Novel timeline. A little bit more explicit than usual because we all know that Elisa's mind is _filthy_.

The dreams started the day she first laid eyes on him in that tank. At first, they were hazy, she couldn’t quite make out that it was _him_ , but she had a feeling. In the beginning it was nothing more than him simply appearing in her dreams, not doing much. They were the kind of dreams that she often forgot as soon as she woke up. But each day they became more and more intense. To the point that she was ashamed that he came into her mind so often, and she would try to push it away, to think of someone else, something else. But nothing was more interesting than the creature.

Elisa doesn’t always remember her dreams. There are times she wakes up in a blind panic, heartbeat racing, but the details shrink and scatter like shadows in the lamplight until all she’s left with is the foggy memory of a nightmare and the lingering echo of a familiar growl. Whatever haunts her dreams, she remembers only a terrible sensation of sinking. And she thinks of _him_. She touches a still shaking hand to her face, and can’t remember why she’s crying.

Other times Elisa dreams in flashes: flame and heat and the color blue, all stark in the darkness. Her skin is too tight for her body and she can feel a burning rope in the pit of her stomach. The rope becomes a knot and she can feel it pulling tighter and tighter until the fire within her starts grow, start to spread and, God, she’s burning under the water, she’s drowning and wants to explode under the pressure, and she’s close, so close.

Her dreams turn more intimate when she starts spending more time in T-4, sneaking in to see him every time she gets the chance, bringing him more and more eggs. A thought at 6:17 pm a few days later makes her shoot up from the couch and knock over the lamp. Over the last few days, she'd dreamt of nothing else but _him_. Not dreams one typically has about friends and acquaintances. No, dreams that make her wake up. An indulgence of a perverted fantasies she can’t keep at bay. Chest heaving, loose tendrils of hair sticking to her forehead and the nape of her neck. She clutches her breast, feeling her heart hammering, her blood bubbling, as if she’s been holding her breath.

It’s only once she has taken a few deep breaths that she notices the heady smell of her own desire and the slickness between her legs. Aroused but confused, she rolls over and tries to fall back asleep. Tries to ignore the tension in her belly. The bone-deep hunger in her soul.

* * *

She sits on the couch. She is so tired, the flat, narrow surface calls out to her all the same. She wants to fight it but she realizes that she can’t stay awake forever and eventually has to face _him_ and her own desires again. So, she lies down and closes her eyes. Quickly, she falls asleep and she tries to hold on to the part of herself she can control even when wandering through dreams.

She lets her hand drift across the plates on his abdomen, soft, wet and so intoxicating. She can’t believe how beautiful his scales feel under her fingers, she moves her lips forward, wanting to feel his skin beneath her lips, tempted to know what he tastes like. She wonders if it’s similar to his scent, exotic traces over the top of that smell, like the first bite into fruit, when you think it’s going to be sweet and it is for a moment but then it has a chase of tart and you are left confused as to the flavor in your mouth.

She hums in the back of her throat as she tastes him, her hand slipping further down his body until her fingers stop just above the plates between his legs. Could she? Would it be wrong? No, she reassures herself, it’s just a dream, no one would know and no one would care. It’s just a dream, but she has to ask. She lets her fingers dwell there, relishing in the feel of his cool skin, her blunt nails dragging back across his scales. Something stirs slightly beneath her touch, a sharp intake of breath, as her hand slips to grab something she can’t really make out in her hazy mind.

She’s touching him everywhere now, exhilarated, drunk on the idea. She wants him to come undone in her hand, feel his whole body shake before her, to know that she can do this to him. She takes a shaky breath, before moving her hand back to him. She wraps her hand around his thick shaft that’s unlike anything she’d imagined before, letting herself explore him and her hand is barely able to wrap around him. He is so hot and heavy in her hand, she can feel him throbbing through that vein that runs on the underside of him. She feels him giving a shuddering sigh, the little noise from the back of his throat followed by a low growl.

She lets her hand slide up and down him, but is stopped when the creature’s hand grips around her wrist, pulling her hand upwards. He steers her hand up until it’s up near his head. She revels in his land-breath rushing across her skin in shorts pants, and then his lips are brushing across the heel of her palm, just a shadow, but then again harder with just a touch of his tongue. Her heart thunders in her chest, she rubs her thighs together in hopes that the friction would reduce the ache settling between them. She has to stop her eyes rolling back into her head as he runs the flat of his tongue from the heel of her hand, up over her middle and ring fingers. His hand guides her hand back down to his length, the friction must have been painful, her mind supplies before the thought completely flees and instead she finds herself consumed by how big his hand is compared to hers, engulfing hers as he uses it to stroke up and down his magnificent shaft.

His breath comes in shorter bursts, the tiniest, dirtiest vocalizations leaving his mouth as she twists her wrist every couple of strokes. His hips start to shift with their movements, almost shuddering back and forth as their hands slowly speed up. His hips try to keep up with strokes, but can’t keep pace, especially when she sinks her teeth into the flesh joining his shoulder and neck. His whole body tenses and she feels him coming undone, her mouth sealed on his skin. He keeps her hand stroking, as his release spills across her hand, slower, with more sensuality and intimacy than she realizes could be in this moment.

The dream fades into nothingness, sleep calling her back to its embrace.

* * *

The dreams keep coming. Stronger and more vivid each night. Elisa keeps her face pressed into the pillow for an irrational fear of the noises she might make. Face red with shame, she presses her sticky thighs together, refusing to let her hands drift below the blankets.

He fucks her from behind, hard and fast, his much larger frame curled over hers so that he’s inside and outside and everywhere at once. One big, clawed hand is curled around her neck and his mouth is right by her ear, his land-breath like a brand over her cheek. He growls, pulling her harder against him, his other hand tight on her hip. He tightens his grip on her throat and she can hardly breathe. But the lack of oxygen only enhances the sensation. She likes it when it hurts a little. The hand on her hip snakes down between her legs to where they are joined, to where she is sopping wet with their exertion, their mutual desire. When his fingers find her swollen center, and start to move as if he’s ratcheted up the temperature, she’s glad she can’t see his face because she thinks this time she might actually break, might actually explode—Only nothing happens. It never does.

She wakes up and screams soundlessly into her pillow.

* * *

She’s well past shame now. Curled up on the sofa in the afternoon sunlight, Elisa waits until she hears Giles close his front door and leave for yet another one of his important appointments. All the pent up emotions – desire, lust, frustration – that have been plaguing her since she first saw _him_ are like dynamite in her belly and if she doesn’t do something about them right now she thinks she might go mad.

Quiet as a hushed thought, she slips her hand beneath the hem of her nightdress and between her legs. She’s on a knife’s edge already: dripping down her thighs and throbbing, readier than she’s ever been. The first touch of her fingers is maddening: she can’t help her sharp intake of breath, the way her hips buck, her whole body shaking. Too far gone to tease, she sets a quick and brutal pace: tight circles round and round, and the wet sounds are loud and obscene in her ears, only she doesn’t care because the flame within her has become an inferno and she’s rising upwards, straining towards her peak, and she’s almost got it this time, almost, she’s close, so close, oh God, please—A sudden loud thud from outside startles her. She rips her hand from under her nightdress and huddles beneath the blankets, trying to calm her breathing, her heart, her mind. Just like that, the moment's gone.

Giles must have forgotten something.

* * *

The dreams continue, an indulgent foray into oblivion. It’s when they turn into something more she starts to wonder if she'd stepped over the simple ‘attraction’ phase. Tonight, she’s teaching him to dance. This, she considers in a haze, is one of her most oft-visited fantasies. The dreams are becoming intimate in a different way. Sleeping next to each other in the deep parts of a misty river, gentle caresses, hand holding, his eyes, the way his face lights up when he sees her, _him_. Romantic and gushy dreams that fill her stomach with butterflies when she thinks about them.

Sometimes she slams him up against the wall of the lab, wraps her legs around his hips and steals the breath from his otherworldly lungs, her kisses bruising, punishing. Sometimes she dreams of their escape, and she holds his hand tightly to her and whispers promises neither of them can hear. Sometimes they die together, hands clasped, red blood flowing from both of their bodies. Sometimes he loves her. Sometimes she loves him.

* * *

She searches for him in her dreams when she cannot hold back any longer. Still from across an endless distance. Still too far to touch. She sees him standing motionless at the center of a too-bright T-4, but his back is turned to her, and from so far away she can only make out the flutter of his gills. This time he does not reach for reach.

The scene changes and something is wrong. Wherever her drifting mind has brought her is tainted, warped by her inner turmoil into someplace wrong. There are no warm reveries calling to her here, no hazy beacons of imagined peace. There is only a deep and endless blackness, heavy in its oppressive silence, and she feels as though she’s standing at the bottom of a terrible ocean. She sees him, a guiding light in the void, but he isn’t happy when she reaches him. His arms are crossed defensively, claws digging trenches into the flesh of his arms.

* * *

It takes a few more nights for her to dream again after that, but this time, she's in her bathtub beneath him, her legs locked around his waist and her nails digging into his back. This is a dream she's had before, but it's different all the same. His hands and mouth are all over her. It’s like he wants to leave no part of her untouched. And everywhere that his hand or his lips touch, sear her to the core. When their lips meet there is so much fire, so much pent up longing. She grinds her hips into him, feeling his hardness so close to where she wants it to be.

There's a quiet desperation as he thrusts into her, one that she's never felt before, and it overwhelms her. His hands and lips are everywhere, marking her, claiming her (she often imagines him to be possessive); his teeth find a spot on her shoulder. Her hips buck up to meet him, and he’s careful not to hurt her. (Even in her dreams, she looks at him like she believes he never would.) He groans into her ear before his lips sink to her neck. Her nails are digging into his back, her head thrown back. When she opens her eyes, it is to see his eyes locked on hers, something like a smirk on his lips before they crash down onto her skin as his hand slips between them.

Soon, too soon, his thrusts become more erratic and she throws her head back. In what seems simultaneously like only moments and an eternity later, she is crashing over the edge. He fucks her through her own release, and only then does he let himself go. Afterwards, she curls into his side and lays her head against his chest, smiling up at him, sated and content. It's everything she ever wanted and never thought she could have, and she fights the weariness she feels settling over her. In the back of her mind, she knows it's only a matter of time before she wakes up again.

* * *

Her days become marked by thinking about how to break him out, she exhausts every idea that comes to her mind, but every time it seems she's getting close, the plan slips through her fingers like sand. At night, she falls into a restless sleep, her dreams a landscape of blurry images, overwhelming sensations and lingering feelings, and even though she tries to keep tight control over her mind, it's like the dreams of them opened a door that she can no longer close properly.

She recognizes him, the gills on the side of his face, the strong bearing, the waves of the algae covered, small pool rolling through her, through him, so overwhelming she nearly falters, struggles to stay upright. She stands before him and she stares at him, a faint smile turning mischievous at the corner of her mouth. She feels her stomach clench, feels her blood heat at the sight of him. Her eyes flash hazel-green, her hair unbound above her shoulders.

She realizes she is dreaming as she fists her hands along his back, rises up on tiptoe and presses her lips to his, burning-hot, branding. She knows that he is but a shadow, this dark creature burning here in the darkness. She does not care. She is playful, curious, sliding her tongue along the seam of his lips before slipping inward to tangle with his, tilting her head to deepen the kiss, and she does not fight when he knots his clawed fingers in her hair, presses close to her, kisses her with open desire. There is fire beneath her skin, in her blood, and for the first time in years she feels invincible.

She breaks the kiss, stares at him with eyes gone lust-dark and hooded. She curves her hand around his jaw, fingertips tight against the scales of his skin. Something in her protests, fights, as her eyes burn into his. They say he’s a predator, he is darkness, death, power thrumming through him, pulsing, pounding, everywhere... She smiles, for him, soft and beautiful in his darkness. His breathing is rough and ragged as she presses him back against the edge of the pool, settles across his lap, straddles his hips.

Taking each side of his face in her hands she kisses him, pours her own passion and lust back into him. They meld together like oil and water being sloshed together, moving as one but never quite melding completely. Hands move in flurries, cloth tears and falls to the ground by the side of the pool. She pulls her uniform over her head then licks at his neck, nipping her sharp little teeth below his gills until dark marks start to appear.

His wet hands practically wrench her stockings from her skin, fingers dancing over, inching lower, closer until they sink in deep, just in the right spot and slicked with liquid heat that have her writhing in his arms. Her hips rock against him in tandem, all but whimpering every time he stills or slows. Her brows lowered, nose scrunched in anger when he stops and pulls away, and it amuses him greatly. Flicking his thumb over that perfect little nub just right earning him fingernails digging into his shoulders and a silent swear he can’t understand. He leans up and kisses her chin and along her jawline, her breathing loud in her ear.

His response comes as a hiss through gritted teeth, a primal snarl of frustration. She leans back, watching his muscular form underneath her with only her panties keeping her from her carnal goal. It takes but a snip of his claws to pull her free from such confines and then her fingers are stroking at just the right angle to get him fully erect and achingly hard.

She looks at him and pauses, letting go of her prize to lick her way up his chest to his lips, rubbing her body over him like a wiggling, weighted blanket. Her dark hair comes to just before his nose, filling it with the scent of soap as she sucks on the crook of his neck hard enough to leave an angry dark welt complete with teeth indents. When she is finished she pulls away with a loud pop of suction, making a sight of licking her lips before sitting back up and returning to her handy work between his legs. She watches him touch at it lightly, feeling how his own pulse is pounding up against the tips of his fingers. She’s sure he can sense a stand of pride, almost possession coming from her. She’d left her mark on him for everyone to see.

He blinks, once with his translucent eyelids, and she is gone, only the lingering warmth of her body against his, the illusion of a memory of her fingertips against his skin.

And Elisa wakes, breath seizing high in her throat, eyes fluttering dark and unfocused into the night, her hand shoved under her nightdress and a sigh ghosting fire across her lips.

* * *

Days go by, bleed into weeks, and she can see him getting weaker, what once had been a raw and untamed enigma is slowly shaped into a form she can barely recognize, and there is no doubt in her mind who's responsible for that.

That night she dreams of him, beautiful and fierce, dreams of them and the night in the lush Amazonian forest, but it's not the heat of the jungle melting her skin, and she wakes with a start, her body and mind aching and wanting. Her nightdress clings uncomfortably to her skin and she bites back a curse.

She spends the rest of the night trying to calm down but the dream and her emotions still linger in the shadows at the edge of her mind.

* * *

The next day she wanders through concrete corridors, wearing her cleaning robe that flows like the wind with every movement. The skin on her head prickles and she wants to undo her hair, to run her fingers across her scalp and scream but she doesn’t do it. Something dangerous is beginning to bubble in the pit of her stomach. It's been coiling up, hot and wanting and it sets her skin on fire every night. She has to stop her aimless wandering around this vision of Occam to focus on holding herself together. She remembers impossibly tiny details about her previous fantasies and they creep under her skin like termites. They eat her up. The way his tongue ghosted over her jawbone, the way his claws dug into the skin of her back and worst of all, his small, ragged breaths through all of it. His chest rising and falling against her own. They were broken and desperate sounds and she can hear them so clearly, it makes her go blind. She closes her eyes and staggers to the nearest wall, holding onto it as if it is the last bit of her sanity.

He gasps somewhere, that echo of him, and she crosses her legs firmly to dampen the throbbing at her core. Suddenly, she’s in T-4, the water coming up to her waist. She feels his nose nudge hers, as if he was really there and she bites down on her lip, feeling her face contort into a grimace. She wants him to touch her again.

She breathes in huffs, heavy and loud. She exposes her neck for him and loses the last bit of sensibility she'd had any hope of holding on to. He snaps right down to it, kissing and biting and licking until she withers, rolling her hips against him with remarkable strength. This is all the invitation he needs. Both his arms travel down to her bottom to hoist her up and carry her.

Since this is still a dream which she can’t control, they find themselves in the humid Amazonian jungle. It's his home, though she doubts he will ever see the real thing again. And when he lowers her down into shallow, murky water, she feels that she, too, belongs there. In his world. And what would she give to be with him in his world? What wouldn't she give?

For the first time in a while, Elisa opens her eyes when she feels the soft mud of the riverbed touching her skin. The creature is towering above her, tall and firm. He glances down at her. She completely naked and exposed to his eyes. He is so painfully beautiful she feels like crying. He is so tall and strong, his muscles defined. His eyes dark and talking and it fills her with an unexpected rush of what she can only define as _love_.

For a second, it feels like he’s right there in the dream with her. It's like he senses her thoughts and a wave of mixed emotions hits him, making his amber eyes widen in surprise. She wants him to know that she wants to keep him safe, to keep him sound and whole and just like he stands before her now. She sees him stripped from the danger that he can pose the way she is stripped from her clothes. She wonders who hurts more from this idea; him or her. She can see the contradicting emotions curse through him, too. It's all over his face, how he does not know how he feels about what she feels for him.

The world around could as well fall away from them now. She can believe that it's only them on the planet in this moment. Just her and this scaled creature who looks at her as if she was made of gold. There is no darkness, no chains, no medical supplies that could be torture devices, no music, no boiled eggs, no light. Only two bodies and minds in a void. His eyes fall on her. Marveling at her, he moves closer to her and climbs on top of her. He keeps staring, intently, and nudges her knees apart with a little hesitation. It seems... almost shy. Nerves start building up in her. A part of her knows that this is just a dream, dream versions of themselves acting on a metaphysical pane of existence, but she feels so completely made of flesh in this second, it's hard to remember that.

He is searching for something in her eyes, he is waiting for her to consent and she does so, willingly. She nods and shuts the ringing warning bells in the back of her head out with rigor. Once she has rummaged through her emotions and finds nothing but hunger, she lets him get right to it. She doesn’t need preparation. She is wet and ready, but still slightly taken aback when he positions himself within moments and then pushes into her quick and deep. A growl breaks from his throat as he enters her warmth in a rush, sudden, like a riptide. He fits well and she welcomes him, welcomes his beginning thrusts, his trembling, jerky movements. She wants this to be real more than she cares to admit, as he crashes into her with abandon.

Her teeth catch scales on his shoulder and she bites down while he fills her up, his mouth hanging lose around the skin of her neck. He is going rougher and faster, racing toward his release. She thinks that if he goes on like this, he won't last long. As soon as that thought takes shape in her, he halts. All motion ceases, leaving her with an emptiness she has never felt before. She wants to protest, to make him go on, but then he looks down at her and she stops short.

First, he studies her eyes, then her lips, then her eyes again. He is breathing heavily, his own eyes dark with lust. He holds her there for a moment, crawling under her skin and into her soul as her breath hitches in her throat. Inside him, she can feel the tightness of his chest, how it is all falling into itself and focusing only on her. She can almost see herself in his mind. He glows, like a beacon of light and it's killing her. She is livid, burning up with raging emotions she is struggling to control.

He breathes in deep and then, ever so tauntingly slow, starts to move again. He pushes his pelvis into hers, keeping his eyes locked on hers with a gaze so focused and fierce, it shuts down her system entirely. There is no air, nor water left between the two of them and he touches parts of her, both physical and metaphysical, that she had not known to exist. He keeps at the slow pace and pushes deeper. The way he bites his lip and his eyes roll back into his head ever so often only to find hers again, makes her stomach coil into a thick, pulsing ball. She digs her fingernails into his arm and he picks up the speed. She makes low, guttural sounds as he pushes into her again and again and then—swift and efficient, he turns them around so she sits on him, straddling his hard length. His chest is bigger, feels even fuller now with an emotion she does not dare name, and her mind goes blank again and again, as if she was a light switch someone tempered with.

This feels so impossibly good, she can’t imagine anything better. Everything pales beside the sensation of sitting on him, feeling him hard and desperate beneath her own trembling body. He rises up to meet her every thrust and makes her forget her own name. As she rides him, her fingernails dig into his chest, scratching at his skin. She tries to go slow but she is failing miserably, wanting it all and wanting it now, and fast and harder. He brings his hand between their bodies and finds her sweet spot, placing his knuckles just so that she can grind against them.

She is not yet there when his orgasm surprises them both with rattling force and quick build-up. She pushes down hard onto him while he is lost in the waves of his pleasure. He has to close his eyes, properly close them. His mouth falls open and he can hear her breathing in the distance. She scratches him deeper than before as her walls start to clench around him. His own light is joined by hers and they might as well become a supernova, drenched in fire. She sits on top of him and rides out her climax with a pained and helpless sigh and he is everything that ever mattered. She will get herself back soon. But until then, she just needs him to be inside her.

And be nothing else.

Elisa wakes up with a start in a puddle of her own sweat, damp between her legs and out of breath.

She reaches for him.


End file.
